Palpable fears of losing the forthcoming governorship primary looms in the camp of Governor Udom Emmanuel’s preferred aspirant, Pastor Umo Eno.
As at Wednesday, April 27, 2022, the arrowheads in the campaign groups for Pastor Umo Eno could not precisely give the Akwa Ibom State governor satisfactory briefs on the progress they have made in marketing the aspirant to delegates and stakeholders.
Informed sources said that early last month, Governor Emmanuel having sensed dangers in the Umo Eno’s project, had reached out to prominent personalities within and outside the state, pleading with them to prevail on Senator Bassey Albert Akpan (OBA), Rt. Hon. Onofiok Luke, Hon. Akan Okon and Mr Akan Udofia to withdraw from the race and promised them mouth-watering offers.
“I can say it on good authority that ministers of God, traditional rulers and prominent politicians were given the task to beg the aspirants to withdraw from the race and allow the governor’s anointed aspirant to go into the primary unopposed.
“Some of the Clerics were His Eminence, Dr Sunday Mbang, Prelate Emeritus of Methodist Church; Evangelist Uma Ukpai, founder and President of Uma Ukpai Evangelistic Association (UUEA), while Oku Ibom Ibibio and Chairman of Akwa Ibom State Council of Chiefs, HRM Solomon Etuk and other traditional rulers, were engaged in the unfruitful assignment.
“When the aspirants went ahead to purchase expression of interest forms and also intensified consultations to delegates and stakeholders across the state, the governor knew that his emissaries were unsuccessful to help him get them to step down,” the source said.
The source further disclosed that some of the promoters of the Umo Eno’s project were blunt to openly inform the governor that people were nonchalant about the aspirant.
It was also learnt that they also told the governor that his Presidential aspiration was affecting the gubernatorial campaigns in the state as he now spends more time outside for his consultations and not concentrate as expected on the succession project.
With the frustrations over the non-viability of Umo Eno’s project, the media directorate in the Governor’s Office were mandated to go all out to attack Senator Bassey Albert, who is the major fear of the camp.
“The recent sustained attack against Senator Albert and his promoters like Mkpisong Inyang-eyen is instructive. The media directorate is mandated to go all out to distract, offend and perhaps court Senator Albert’s anger to see if he or his supporters will descend on the characters used in writing the offensive and libellous articles against him.
“The plan is that once anything untoward is done against them, government would institute a criminal case against Senator Albert. He is their nightmare. They have been planning on how to implicate him in any criminal matter. But he has surprised them, rather going about his campaigns in a humble and friendly disposition,” another dependable source in the campaign group hinted.
Also, it is being speculated within the camp that Governor Emmanuel may pick an alternative aspirant to Umo Eno as fresh facts emerge that he has questionable qualifications and is increasingly becoming unacceptable
It was learnt that the Governor may make a state broadcast before the primaries to further whim up sentiments on his preferred political aspirant and why people show toe his succession line.
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